The Good Town of Awa-amatsu

Awa-amatsu on the Boso Peninsula, one train stop away from the surfer haven Awa-kamogawa.

 

It looks like any other sleepy beachside town, but it is apparently considered one of the less well-off towns in the Peninsula, deflated as the fishing business died down.

This sign at the beach spells out the situation for you:
1. Protect our youth from deliquency.
2. Do not inhale substances such as paint thinner.
3. Do not walk alone at night.

Sparklers at the (noticeably littered) beach.

The town's pretty little junior high school. They must have had some funds left over.

Monkey sign on the mountain road. The stationmaster at Awa-amatsu advised against walking in the woods, but I couldn't figure out if this was because of the animals or the paint-huffers.

Followed a shallow river downstream.

 Freshwater crab!

 A bone from an unidentifiable creature. This was definitely spooky.

Nautical Nostalgia

Yagyu, a small restaurant near Futomi, a small town in the Boso Peninsula. I wound up at the train station by pure chance and needed a place to eat. This restaurant ended up being an unplanned surprise.

The first thing you notice about the place is its sense of style. This isn't merely a place that has been open for the past 40 years, it's almost like a curio shop masquerading as an eatery. The decor, the physical space, and the dim light filtering through made me wonder if the owner's intent was to recreate the feeling of being on a boat. The proportions of the benches and the table in the above photo reminded me of a cabin.

Old clocks line one wall, amid other parphenalia.

Even the spoons on the wall (behind the old-looking blender) look like they belong on a ship. The machine on the left is to make kakigori (shaved ice).

The available kakigori flavors were tacked up on the wall, along with an old kite and a gourd.

Here is milk-flavored shaved ice. Milk as in condensed milk.

A nice finishing touch on the ceiling.

Kamogawa Beach

Maebara Coast Beach, a few minutes' walk from Awakamogawa Station on the JR Sotobo Line. Japan's tendency to use breakwaters near oceans and bays may not be pleasing aesthetically, but you have to admit that they have their uses. Since I visited a couple of days before a major typhoon that ended up shutting down most of the subways and train stations in the Tokyo Metropolitan area (not an east feat), the waves were something fierce. The only area that was safe for swimming was before the breakwaters.

This was a known surfer's beach, but the strong waves on that weekend proved absolutely irresistible to surfers.

The waves getting fiercer as the day goes on.

Cold showers were available in the park adjacent to the beach, but someone had set up a warm-water shower booth for 100 yen a wash. I hope they have lights in that thing.

The town's bus stop, with a refueling stand and toilet around the corner.

Sushi by the Sea

Sushi Sasamoto, a sushi shop near Awa-Kamogawa Station. Located in the Bōsō Peninsula, it seems that most train stations in the area are only a few minutes' walk from the Pacific Ocean. Needless to say, the fish was very fresh.

Outside the restaurant, chili peppers left out to dry in the sun.

Little wooden boxes with people's last names on the top right corner, and names of flowers on the bottom left. I'm guessing these belong to regulars, and are used to drink sake.

Katsuura Fishing Port

Katsuura Fishing Port, in Chiba, which brings in fish from all over the country. They're especially known for their bonito catch.

Locals, spending the afternoon catching small fish with the strays keeping them company.

Occasionally the fishermen through them a bone -- or some of their catch.

Makeshift fires keep the fishermen warm.

A small shrine on the shore...

...and further out.



Katsuura Big Dolls Festival: Here, There, and Everywhere

Part three in photos of the Katsuura Big Dolls Festival. The beautiful hina dolls were ubiquitous all around the town. Here they are, lining the windows of the post office.

Spotting the dolls was fun, and it was hilarious to see them placed in increasingly incongruous environments.

Dolls sitting on big shells in front of a barbershop. Katsuura faces the Pacific Ocean, with a fishing port not 10 minutes from the station, so shells were an oft-seen decorating device.

It was one of the fanciest barbershops I'd ever seen.

Still in front of the barber's.

In a clothing store for old ladies.

The florist's.

Sushi restaurant.

Dolls positioned in the fish store, among raw fish. Slightly wacky.

On top of the post office box.

However, no dolls were seen in the sewing machine shop.

Katsuura Big Dolls Festival, Part Two

For the Katsuura Big Dolls Festival, the whole city of Katsuura got into the spirit. One family had even opened their house to the public, manned by a lovely grandma who made small talk with visitors. The house was built so that the hallway was at one end of the house, with sliding doors covering the length of it.

Slide open all the doors and you have one long (but narrow) space dedicated to Girl's Day decorations, hand-crafted by the locals.

Check out these dolls, with shell faces colored in with felt-tip marker!

Because of the bad weather, the decorations weren't complete. Ideally, a doll would have been placed in each hole carved into the bamboo.

Katsuura Big Dolls Festival

Katsuura Station

Katsuura, Chiba, a small city along the Pacific Ocean that goes all-out for Girls' Day (March 3) every year. They gather hina dolls (a traditional set of dolls that are gifted to girls for Girls' Day), and exhibit them throughout the city, in public spaces, shops, and even shrines. 

The delicate dolls were covered up that day, to protect them from the rain.

Named the Katsuura Big Dolls Festival, this year's festival took place from February 19 to March 3. Visitors can walk around the small city and spot literally thousands of dolls decorated everywhere. The total number is around 25,000. 

Peeking inside the shroud.

Where do they get these dolls? They are all donations: from families whose daughters are grown up, by people who don't have enough space in their house to display the dolls, and people who simply found that their dolls were languishing in their closets.

A cafe uses its staircase to display the dolls.

This ingenious idea was actually born in Katsuura, Tokushima Prefecture, in southern Japan. It gives the dolls a second life, and since hina doll sets are incredibly expensive, people can undoubtedly rest easier knowing that they are being appreciated by a sizable audience. (For a seven-tiered set, such as in the photo above, even a cheap version costs around $2400 dollars, and prices get infinitely higher if you opt for quality.) 

The big draw of the festival is the display of dolls on the 60 steps of Tomisaki Shrine -- 1,200 in all. Because hina dolls are extremely fragile, they have to be put out every morning, and stored away carefully in the evening. Since the weather on the day that I went was iffy, the city didn't risk putting the dolls out at all. It was disappointing, for sure, but as you can see in the following posts, there was still much to see.